Joey:
Over the last few months we've set up a number of aquariums out here in the Aquarium Gallery and every time I set up a new aquarium, I state that this is now my new favorite aquarium. Now that we've had them set up for quite a while now though, what is my favorite fish? This one's kind of controversial for me and even talk about top five. Simply because there's so many more fish coming out here soon.
A lot of these tanks are getting additional fish added to them and will be basically more than doubling the amount of fish out here soon.
What I'm trying to get at is it almost depends on the time of day or the day of the week that it is. Some of the fish are some of my favorites for different reasons. In today's video, I'm going to talk about what my top five favorite fish are in the Gallery right now. I'll tell you what they are and why they're my favorite right now. Let's start off with these African Cichlids up here. Now, these guys are always a crowd-pleaser, extremely active, very colorful and since I have all males we don't really have any aggression. I enjoy them for a number of reasons, mainly because they're so simple to care for yet look so visually appealing.
These guys are certainly a crowd-pleaser. For example, a lot of people struggle with feeding their fish, what should they give them and so forth. What I find with these guys is regardless of what I offer them they just go nuts for the food which is always a plus. It's always great to have healthy fish that are vigorously eating and attacking the food. There is a couple fish in here with a little bit of tattered fins but that's going to happen on almost every aquarium with cichlids. There's always going to be somebody that is the boss. For the most part, these guys are all in perfect shape. I'm really enjoying them.
One of my favorite things to do is actually feed them. They're certainly an aggressive feeder. To be honest with you, they'll eat just about any food that I offer them. What I give them is just pelletized foods directed towards African cichlids. I don't feed any specific brand or type. I mix it up and give them something that will promote color. There's a bit of spirulina in the diet, just something well-rounded. Now I don't really have an order of the favorites. Of course, we started with the Africans because they are right there. But I do have a number one favorite that we're going to talk about at the end. For now, let's move onto the next favorite and this one's kind of easy.
Now, I've got to give Frank a shout-out, but I'll be entirely honest with you guys, I actually don't like him in this aquarium because I don't have the chance to interact with him. He's such a personable little fish. The bichir is in there somewhere by the way. He's still in there. He's still okay. For Frank, he needs a personal aquarium. He needs his own time with me. I really can't express how excited I am to get him back to the way he was.
The reason why everybody loves him in the first place, which is the fact that he's just such a fun and personable fish. These days though I don't know if he's looking to bite me or he wants to play. Unfortunately, I'm not going to find out till we get him in a new aquarium. I do know if I didn't give Frank a shout-out or give him a little bit of show on the camera here, you guys are going to start a riot.
My next favorite fish out here in the Gallery is my Uaru tank. In fact, this is one of my favorite aquarium period. The Uaru, of course, if you've watched some of my past videos, and I've explained why I got them, what they mean to this channel and so forth, you will truly understand. I really love this tank. Especially, the Uaru who are kind of hiding right now because I just shined some lights on them and jumped down here. This is one of my favorite tanks for a couple of reasons.
One, it's one of the most natural in my opinion. The background by Aqua Decor is absolutely stunning and truly complements the real wood out front. To be entirely honest, when people come over, like friends and family, and they see these aquariums and see these backgrounds, for example, they have no clue that they're not real. The camera's never going to show that but it's absolutely stunning. I actually wanted to do something for you guys for the first time on camera and the first time for me in about 10 or 12 years which is feed these guys a specific food that I used to love feeding them. We'll get to that in a minute.
These guys are my favorite fish right now or one of my top five favorite fish in Aquarium Gallery right now simply because they have such a strong meaning to me but also because the metamorphosis that they go through in terms of their color changing in patterns. Not to mention that-- Well, now that I've been sitting here for a couple of minutes they're extremely personable and friendly in the tank which is kind of rare for Uaru at this size. They tend to hide a lot but these guys are out a whole lot.
Of course, when the lights aren't on they're far more active and whatnot. This tank alone, in my opinion, again, is one of the more natural looking tanks. I still think that the Uaru have a long ways to grow. They're going to get to like 10 inches or so. We'll only be able to keep maybe four to six in here. Maybe just a pair with a ton of tetras or something like that. I'd love to show you guys the breeding process of the Uaru. Back when before I was on Youtube I've bred Uaru and it's absolutely amazing to watch.
Let's feed them something I haven't fed them in a very long time. I'll admit right now it's probably the reason I wanted to make this video. I just wanted to feed them this, show you guys it. I had to come up with a reason why I'm making this video in the first place so let's talk about top five. These guys are pretty much well camouflaged. If you could see them they're in behind the wood right now. Most of the time they're out with the tetras. These tetras acting as a dinner fish, making sure they seem like everything's okay in the aquarium. However, being a cichlid you would assume that they would have a high-protein diet. They're kind of in the mid spectrum.
You would feed them like you would Africans or even Tropheus, for example. You would want to feed them a vegetable type diet. One of their favorite meals, and this is going to be so corny to so many people but I love feeding it to them, is Romaine lettuce. Back when I had a bunch of adults they would go absolutely nuts for this. Don't be confused, Uarus still have a nice set of teeth on them as they get bigger. They might be a little too small to eat this right now but I'm going to go ahead and drop this in the tank and set it on the lid here. We'll come back to it in a little bit and see what they've done.
Okay. I know that a lot of you are probably thinking the Discus has to be one of my favorite fish in the Aquarium Gallery right now and my top five, they're simply not. In fact, they reminded me why I got out of them. At this size, they're a little bit shy, they rarely come out, they can be difficult and finicky to feed, they're sensitive to water quality, they're just a difficult all-around fish to keep if you're not used to keeping them.
You know what I really like? The Angelfish right now are really doing it for me. These guys are such an amazing contrast with this aquarium. I kind of planned them out to have a dark scape tank to contrast with their color, but I didn't realize how good it was truly going to look. With that said, ar nighttime when all the light are off in here, these guys are still glowing. They look like a bunch of floating ghosts inside this aquarium, which is kind of appropriate with Halloween coming up. These guys are absolutely stunning. What makes them better is they're not skittish at all.
These guys are always out. They never hide and they'll readily eat. Watch. If I go up here they know something's coming. You guys hungry? These guys just get a flake food or small pellets. Sometimes I'll give them some frozen foods. I like to keep their diet a bit varied. These guys are such a pleasure to keep. They're so easy to maintain and take care of and they look absolutely stunning. This is one of the tanks that most people that visit the Gallery, friends, and family, of course, enjoy the most.
Now I know a lot of you must have guessed the next favorite fish on the list has got to be the rainbow fish. If you did, you're absolutely right. These guys have quickly become one of my favorite fish in the Aquarium Gallery for a number of reasons. One, they signify to me that it's okay to keep little fish in really big tanks. I've always kept really big fish in really big tanks. This one has been equally rewarding. Since moving this aquarium up against the wall I'm really enjoying the depth that this aquarium has.
Mind you I had not adjusted or changed the wood at all. Yet, I still have to make some adjustments. It's just looking sad, collapsed in place. Overall these guys are just a pleasure to have. They respond to feeding beautifully. They're coloring up nicely. Again, they still a ways to go in term of coloration, as well as size. Keep in mind, they might be really narrow right now, but they will grow in depth as well, like their height, and be a much more larger looking fish in here for sure.
In time, I think, what I could even possibly do is switch out the type of rainbow fish or potentially just add maybe a thousand or even two thousand Cardinal Tetras or anything in here. There's so much possibilities in here. I think, moving forward that this big tank is certainly going to remain a little fish tank. Because I think it's absolutely stunning to see how so many small little fish interact and shoal together, or even sometimes school depending on the species of fish.
These guys are my favorite-- It just feels like they're so in tune with me. Clearly, all I am to the is a meal. They know what I'm doing. The only thing I don't like about them and the reason why I've been putting off fixing the wood is because I literally-- watch this. I can't put my hand in the aquarium without them eating it and I don't like the feeling. As soon as I drop my hand in there, they'll bite at it, a bunch of them will but then they realize, "Okay, this is a hand and it doesn't taste that great," so they stop, but these guys are just a blast to have. Everybody loves them. Feeding them is fun. Let's go ahead and feed them.
These guys get a number of foods, pretty much the same as the angelfish, to be honest with you. They'll get some tiny, tiny pellets, get a variety of flake foods and even some frozen foods just to mix it up. Recently, My Aquarium Box sent me a bunch of food to try out. They're launching a new food and one of the ones that caught my eye for these guys is the brine shrimp. This is going to truly help with coloration. I'm just kind of trying it out and I actually like that it's a red color indicating that there's definitely going to be a ton of a stacksfin in there or however you pronounce that which is in brine shrimp.
Plus it's high in protein. We'll see what happens. I'll feed them this bag, see if there's any improvements with them or anything like that. Again, these guys are always a ton of fun to feed and it's so much easier to feed a fish that will accept and eat anything. It's just fun to watch them. Now we move on to the number one fish. I know what some of you guys are thinking, "It's got to be this guy the Asian Arowana," and to be entirely honest with you, absolutely not.
Well, it is a pretty fish. It's just too small to be my favorite just yet. I will admit that she's a great eater. She does really well in this aquarium but I'll admit I miss Buddy. I miss my big blue bass cross back swimming in this tank and while she will end up being a beautiful fish and I will end up adding some UV lights in here eventually to tan her, she's just not up there just yet. My favorite fish in the aquarium gallery right now, and I got to be honest probably always will be, are my freshwater stingrays. I absolutely am so enthusiastic about stingrays that we could argue the fact that I wouldn't have begun building large aquariums or even made this channel to what it is today if it wasn't for freshwater stingrays.
Now, these guys are clearly just still babies at this size. They're not sexually mature. We have three black diamonds as well as a pearl. I know that they look quite small in this aquarium right now, but again these guys are going grow to be absolute monsters. Eventually, we will have to take out this wood. I do want to add in more fish. some of the fish that I planned on adding through into here simply didn't work out in terms of availability and being able to get them in the quantity, as well as size that I wanted to but I'm always on the lookout. Stay tuned for additional fish being added to this in the near future.
Of course, we can't forget about the little pearl ray over here in the rainbow fish tank still doing excellent. Eating, doing really well, exploring the tank, absolutely loving it, not worried about him at all or sorry, her at all. Of course, it will be a while before she gets into the bigger tank but right now she's doing really good in here and clearly, there's tons of space. There you have it. That is my top five favorite fish in the aquarium gallery as of right now today.
With that said, like I mentioned earlier the numbers of fish out here are soon to double, and there's already hundreds out here. I should give an honorable mention to the Tropheus that are actually looking absolutely stunning right now. There's a few other little fish in here that you guys haven't seen yet. Again, so many more fish will be added shortly, so let's call this part one of 50 or something like that because clearly, you don't want a day-to-day basis my opinions, and what's my favorite and what's not. It's certainly going to change, but we'll have to see over time.
I'd love to know what you guys think. Were your favorite of the fish that I've shown or even your favorite aquarium so let me know in the comments section below. All right, just a quick update on the romaine lettuce situation. I've seen a couple of the Uaru up there nipping at it. I don't see any bite marks out of it just yet, but they certainly are exploring it. I just came back over to the aquarium now, so they're not too excited about me being here. As soon as they discover that they can eat this romaine lettuce these guys are going to start attacking this like a pack of little Piranhas.
The good part about romaine lettuce is I can leave it in the aquarium overnight. It's not going to rot, it does take quite a while to do that. We've definitely got plenty of time to work on that. Plus the fact that it's such an affordable meal for them. It's only going to cost me pennies to add in a leaf of romaine lettuce every other day and let them enjoy it, but as you can see they'll even nip out wood. Anyway, it's just a quick update on that.
